


halfway out of the dark

by leeloo6



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, POV Second Person, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, reality dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 23:19:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leeloo6/pseuds/leeloo6
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a sense of mystery here, a sense of something you’ve never believed in, a tendril of mist curling around your think pan, darkening reality and casting a shadow of doubt over your own perception. Where are you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	halfway out of the dark

A bell church; shot into awareness like an arrow straight into the heart of the forest, you lift your head up from the musky soil and breathe in the humid air. Life, water flowing upstream and downstream through nature’s vessels just like blood flows in your own weakened carcass, thick and yellow. There’s a sense of mystery here, a sense of something you’ve never believed in, a tendril of mist curling around your think pan, darkening reality and casting a shadow of doubt over your own perception. Where are you?

There is light, bright and blinding to your weakened eyes, coming through unfiltered as if your eye sockets were empty and it went directly to your visual cortex, unmediated by the outer shell of your sensory system. Okay, that was stupid. You’re only blinded because the bearable sun was never this bright on Alternia, casting you sightless were you to dare facing it directly. You look up. This place is something else entirely; you’re standing in front of a large tree, branches extending in both directions and fading into a cathedral dome as they ascend towards the shielded sky. You can’t see the ceiling, only stained glass windows that reflect light in the most intricate patterns, a kaleidoscope of life and colour.

You can’t tell exactly where the tree ends and the cathedral begins; you try to adjust your eyes, look for the point of transition, but the wind plays with soft folds of light and everytime you think you’ve got it, the vision slips away, turning into something-not-quite-something that you can’t grasp, like reality is denying you the privilege to be its observer.

There is a staircase surrounding the tree trunk, winding around it until it widens and drags along the walls of the dome. You try to look up towards its end, but either you’re unable to see it, either it’s not there. A staircase with no end. You could explore the forest, see if you can find anyone you know here, but the memory of your dead friends is as faltering as the grip you have over your own consciousness. You’re alive; you’re in a dream bubble; you’re half-dead, trapped in limbo; you are everything and none of those things, and the only certainty that your life-not-life offers at this point is the magnetism of the construct in front of you, pulling you towards it, bending you to its soft, light-shrouded will.

You climb the stairs, letting your fingers wander across the patterns carved in wood as you ascend. Strange symbols, a language that looks nothing like the rough edges of the Alternian writing system; soft, rounded letters, pouring into each other like waves in ebb and flow, alternately oriented to left and right as they decorate the bark alongside intricate geometrical patterns enclosed in circles. As you go up, there is a recurring symbol that catches your eye; a vertical line, crossed by a shorter, horizontal one in its upper part. There were no churches on Alternia; the strange beings inhabiting the Outer Circle made sure to pour their terror directly into your minds, unbothered to create a medium of diffraction for the terrible things they had to show, but you can still figure out the religious significance of this place. You remember the simple cross symbol; Dave showed it to you when he explained human religion. People venerating a being they’d never even seen, fear facetiously disguised as love. It all seems distant now, like memories of a life you’re not sure you’ve ever lived. Instead, foreign thoughts tangle in whispers, requesting entrance to your mind, a permission you feel like you don’t need to give as they start pouring at steady rates, making you panic-but-not-quite. 

You make a half-attempt to turn around and descend, maybe look around for shelter, climb another tree that is simple and questionless and doesn’t invade your mind with foreign beliefs, but you are stopped by the same force, silent and demanding, instructing you to keep going.

Your mind is still not yours; what did you expect? You follow your captor and climb on. The staircase has widened, suspended in empty air, occasionally touching the walls. It keeps spiraling around nothing, clear space where only light has its home. Closer to the stained glass, you see human shapes, animals, geometric patterns of a beauty you’ve only imagined in your most abstract dreams. You reach a point where you can touch the damp stone wall, your fingertips only brushing the lower edge of the window; you try to rise, but you’re powerless. Shards of light, reflected in the back of your mind. Meanings you don’t try to parse as the voices grow more insistent.

You still can’t decipher what they’re trying to tell you. 

`Isn’t it fascinating?’ a crisp voice says. You startle, dragged to a clearer awareness as you see Aradia standing on a window ledge a few feet in front of you. You climb to her; almost desperate, desperately relieved to see her full-blown smile, your hands in hers the still point of the world. 

`What’s so fascinating about it?’ you mumble, surprised that the voice cutting the air is coming from you. `It’s just a stupid building in the middle of nowhere.’

`Do you think so?’ she laughs and your heart warms up with comfort.

`It’s good to see you again,’ you say. You feel like hugging her, but it strikes you that you shouldn’t, not right now when you’re not sure what’s real and what’s not. You’re afraid she’ll be gone right from under your arms. `Do you hear them too?’

`Hear what?’

`The voices.’

`Oh, Sollux.’ Her smile falters. `Don’t tell me they haven’t left you alone.’

`No, not them,’ you shake your head, not wanting to think about the grip that Death always had on your mind, an unwilling visionary knowing a future no one wants to know. `Voices coming from this place. I tried to go back down, but they wouldn’t fucking let me.’

Aradia nods in understanding; you have no idea why. 

`I think you have to figure out why you’re here before you can leave,’ she says.

`What is this, some kind of riddle?’ you ask. `And why the hell are you acting like you know what’s going on?’ 

`I don’t, but I have a slight idea and I’m here to help,’ she answers, coming down from the ledge and climbing with you. She’s still holding your hand; keeping you steady, shaping you real. You hate feeling so helpless.

You come to distinguish the voice echoing in your head from the background noise. A singular voice, preaching, tone haughty and words like cannon shots in your mind. You are distracted by the specs of dust playing in the sunlight, by the colours and the nothingness opening right beside you, but it all seems part of the bigger plan of making you listen.

\- _remember the Fall of Man, mortal? The Tree of Knowledge is nothing else but a symbol of duality, denial that the world is one and only one in unity_ -

\- _with reason that splinters and creates the illusion of reality, black and white, absent and present, you and another_ -

\- _how dare you perpetuate the original sin, how can you call yourself a god_ -

 

`SHUT UP!’ 

Aradia startles, but doesn’t let go of your hand. Images are shallow, wavering in front of your eyes like someone rippled the fluid-like fabric of your vision. 

`Are you okay?’ she asks, holding you tighter.

`Why am I here?’ you ask, almost managing to not shout again. You think you’re addressing the voice in your head more than you’re addressing her.

\- _to repent, to unify_ \- 

`What the fuck,’ you murmur, unsettled. Call yourself a coward, but you don’t want to go any further; Aradia stops with you, looking worried, but your feet are dragged forward and you have no choice but to follow, despite the lump in your throat.

The higher you ascend, the more insistent the voice is. Stories of decay and redemption. Threats disguised as claims to righteousness. Genesis, apocalypse and everything rotten in between. Hope to redemption. The terrible nature of the duality that defines you.

Bullshit, since you know very well that the universe is a fucking frog and that duality is the only thing keeping you alive.

_Got it._

These are all legends. Stories coming from the world that you created.

There is no real threat; it’s only your mind caving in itself again.

You breathe in, breathe out, feeling relief wash over you. The voice is still there, but now that you know its nature, you are able to ignore it.

`I think I’m starting to understand. This… is this a dream bubble?’ you ask Aradia. 

`No. I don’t think dream bubbles exist anymore. These are our dream selves- well, at least yours. Mine is only a temporary fix,’ she smiles.

`Yeah, but this isn’t Prospit or Derse,’ you say, baffled. 

`They don’t exist anymore, either. We won, Sollux.’ Her big eyes are full of wonder; you love seeing her excited about things. Just like she used to be. `A new world is being created as we speak. We’re allowed to live there, too, with the human kids.’

`So what am I doing here?’

`You’re with us, but a part of you seemed…missing. Like half of you was left behind, you said, and you assumed that you still have a dream self because it was difficult to give up on duality and exist in only one body so soon. So I came looking for you, and here you are.’ She beams.

`This means this is my dream, right? And I can control it how I want?’

`I don’t know,’ she answers, smile falling from her face like melted snow. You never fail to be surprised at how terribly expressive she is. `There seems to be a lot of religious symbolism, I don’t think it’s likely that you created that. More like… brought it with you? I don’t know.’ She shakes her head. 

`Why would I want to bring these stupid stories with me?’ The voice in your head protests, but you’re quick to silence it. 

Well, lower its volume, at least.

`They’re fascinating stories, Sollux. I’ve read a lot about human religion while I was traveling through the dream bubbles and it’s really not as simple as you’d think. We created humans, but they created all these myths and… they’re part of us, too, in a way. Maybe that’s why they’re in your dream.’

`Wow.’ You shake your head. `You could be right, AA. Even though it does sound like complete bullshit.’

`Shut up. When am I ever not right?’ she grins and you can’t help but smile back. Even though you still have no idea what you’re doing here. Why you, of all of them. 

Devoid of other options, you keep climbing.

You are permitted to stop and look at the stained glass, figures with halos around their heads. Pleading expressions on their long faces. You don’t understand why people would create such illusions for themselves, why you created them weaker than your own species.

In a fit of stupidity, you throw a glance down and see the ground somewhere far below starting to spin. Aradia pulls you back before you’re too tempted to jump.

`Rule number one: don’t look down,’ she reminds you gleefully.

You’re more inclined to think that rule number one is _don’t let go of Aradia’s hand or you’ll spiral down into nothingness_ , but you let that pass.

You’re getting closer to the sky; you take the opportunity and look straight into the sun. 

\- _unity of opposites, but you’re nothing but a shadow of what you could be_ -

It dawns on you that the voice isn’t much different from your own, constantly reminding you of your own weakness.

`It’s amazing how much power legends can have. They feed straight into the origin of an universe-‘ Aradia starts.

\- _but you never believed in these things, did you, you’re too good for that_ -

The tone of the voice morphs steadily into your own, drumming in your ears like a call for war.

`… so it’s kind of a collective illusion and that’s what makes it powerful-‘

\- _you were always weak, splintered,_ -

`Sollux, do you hear me?’ She sounds worried.

You realize that you’ve been keeping your eyes closed shut.

`Yeah. Yeah, I do, I just… sorry. That voice won’t shut up.’

`It’s okay. We’re almost there.’ You can’t see ahead of you, blinded by the light. If, at the tree’s root, reality was deceiving you by not being sure whether to exist or not, here it’s the opposite. Too much light, overflowing reality, a sense of presence so powerful it’s unsettling.

`The new universe, you mean?’ 

`I think so.’

She smiles at you like she’s reflecting all the light in the world; even though you are not real, you’re glad that she’s here to share this illusion with you. The voice drums in your ear, alarmingly loud, but then it stops altogether. Your mind is quiet, dust and light; you step into the sun and think of nothing.

You open your eyes to the familiar faces of friends, a warm hand still holding yours.

**Author's Note:**

> I... don't really know what I wanted to do here? But I hope it worked anyway.


End file.
